The government is now paying eligible tobacco quota owners and eligible tobacco producers to “transition to the free market,” says the Farm Service Agency. In effect, however, the government is paying tobacco owners to get rid of their crops, and plans to do so until 2014

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Basically, anybody that invested in tobacco—whether an owner, operator, landlord, tenant or sharecropper—in 2002, 2003 and 2004 is eligible to receive compensation through the TTPP.

The total estimated expenditure for this program is $10 billion for fiscal years 2007 through 2014.

The phone number listed on the CFDA Web site as belonging to the Tobacco Branch of the Farm Service Agency was actually a phone number for a rules and engineering office.